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  4. Louise Laurent, MD, PhD

Louise Laurent, MD, PhD

Professor and Vice Chair for Translational Research
Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
University of California San Diego

Areas of Expertise: Embryonic stem cell research, genomic technologies, extracellular miRNA, perinatology

 

Louise C. Laurent, MD, PhD, is a board-certified perinatologist who specializes in caring for women with high-risk pregnancies. Perinatologists, also known as maternal-fetal medicine specialists, care for pregnant women who have an increased chance that they or their babies will have health concerns. Dr. Laurent's expertise is in treating women who are at risk for preeclampsia or fetal growth restriction.

Dr. Laurent is the director of perinatal research and a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. As a physician-scientist, her research uses stem cells to understand early development, including early placental development. She has led several National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded clinical trials that investigate extracellular RNA for predicting and diagnosing pregnancy-associated disorders, such as placental dysfunction.

Dr. Laurent has co-authored book chapters, textbooks and many peer-reviewed articles, and her work has been published in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and Cell Stem Cell, among others.

She completed a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine and a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Laurent earned her medical degree and doctoral degree in biochemistry from UC San Francisco. She is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and maternal and fetal medicine.

Dr. Laurent is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, the International Society for Stem Cell Research and the Perinatal Research Society.

Source: UC San Diego clinical profile

 

Current Research
Current funded research

 

Female Reproductive Tissue Mapping Center
NIHU54HD104393

Sep 25, 2020 - Aug 31, 2022
Role: Principal Investigator

 

Stem Cell-based Human Placenta-on-a-Chip Using 3D Bioprinting
NIHR21HD100132

Sep 30, 2019 - Aug 31, 2021
Role: Co-Principal Investigator

 

Omics Data Generation Center (ODGC) for the Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) Program
NIHU54DA049115

Sep 1, 2019 - Jul 31, 2023
Role: Principal Investigator

 

Development and application of a scalable workflow for immunomagnetic separation of exRNA carrier subclasses and molecular analysis of their cargo
NIHUG3CA241687

Sep 1, 2019 - Aug 31, 2021
Role: Principal Investigator

 

Stress-mediated trophoblast proliferation: adaptation or pathology?
NIHR01HD100179

Jul 20, 2019 - May 31, 2024
Role: Principal Investigator

 

Magnetic nanosensors for real-time non-invasive biomarker detection in pregnancy
NIHR21HD094359

Feb 16, 2018 - Jul 31, 2020
Role: Principal Investigator

 

Commercialization of HaploSeq as a Service (HaaS) for generating chromosome-span phased genome and exome sequence information
NIHR44HG008118

Mar 1, 2015 - Feb 29, 2020
Role: Co-Principal Investigator

 

Reference Profiles of ExRNAs in Normal Human Pregnancy
NIHU01HL126494

Aug 1, 2014 - Apr 30, 2020
Role: Principal Investigator

 

ExRNAs for Early Identification of Pregnancies at Risk for Placental Dysfunction
NIHUH3TR000906

Aug 1, 2013 - Jul 31, 2018
Role: Principal Investigator

 

ExRNAs for Early Identification of Pregnancies at Risk for Placental Dysfunction
NIHUH2TR000906

Aug 1, 2013 - Jul 31, 2015

 

Updated August 8, 2021

See source for most current research activities

CO-CREATE (Community-driven Optimization of COVID-19 testing to Reach and Engage underserved Areas for Testing Equity—in Women and Children) is one of the RADx-UP projects funded by the NIH. CO-CREATE is a partnership between UC San Diego, San Ysidro Health, and the Global Arc.

This is a study to understand the challenges and supports involved in getting tested for COVID-19 in the San Ysidro community, and to use results to design strategies to make it easier to get tested for COVID-19.